Torpedo Swimtalk Podcast - TST Quick Splash report from USMS Spring Nationals

Torpedo Swimtalk Podcast brings you a TST Quick Splash report with all the action from United States Masters Swimming Spring Nationals, held at the Woollett Aquatic Centre in Irvine California.

Meet reflections from Sara Dunn, Becky Cleavenger, Lynn Fahey, Katie Glenn, Erika Braun and Trina Schaetz! 

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Transcript

Danielle Spurling: 0:20

Welcome to TST Quick Splash, which is a bite-size torpedo swim talk podcast. I'm your host, Danielle Spurling, and in this episode we have some reflections from some of the swimmers who competed at last week's US Spring Nationals in Irvine, California. But first let's set the scene for you. This is a short course Yards Meet and it drew over 2,500 competitors from around the United States and some overseas competitors, with Olympians like Nathan Adrian, Anthony Irvine and Jenny Thompson competing, right up to 101 year old Maureen Cornfield. it was a truly inspiring meet. There were 56 US MS age group records broken over the 4 day meet. We caught up with 6 swimmers from the meet and asked them a few questions to sense what the atmosphere around pool deck was like. We asked them what races they did and how they went, which races they were happy with, what kind of pre-race warm ups they were able to do in the busy warm up lanes, what were their favourite things about the competition and one I always like to personally know best meal they had during the meet in a local restaurant. So let's hear from the lovely Sarah Dunn, Becky Cleavenger, Lynn Fahey, Katie Glenn, Erika Braun and Trina Schaetz

Sara Dunn: 1:49

Hey Danielle, this is Sarah Dunn. I am answering some questions for you about US Masters Nationals. The atmosphere in California was amazing. It's always fun to see everyone and especially when you have over 2,400 swimmers in one location, at one pool, it's high energy. It's amazing. I swam the 50 to 100 and 200 brush stroke, the 50 free and the 100 IM. I was very happy with my 50 brush stroke. The other races were kind of sub par for me, but I'll take them. You know, it's just part of learning and part of growing, but it's all part of the game. It's part of why we do what we do. I also swam on four different relays the mixed 200 medley, the mixed 200 free, the women's 200 medley and the women's 200 free. And I was pretty excited about the women's 200 free relay. I had to go last and race against some fierce competition, but my teammates are amazing and have gotten me a pretty large lead so we were able to come away with the win And I was really happy with my split on that relay. See, what kind of pre-race warm up do I do Not as much as I should before each race If I've been out of the water for a long time. I'll do a little bit more, but if I've only been out of the water for a little bit I'll maybe do like 100 and then a couple sprints just to get my heart rate up. Fight, warm up. I'll do anywhere from 800 to 1200, just depending on how I feel, always mixing up the strokes and drills and swims and doing some kicking to get my legs ready. Let's see here The three best things about USMS spring nationals Going with my teammates, traveling and going across the country to all swim together to achieve our goals. Seeing friends from all across the country who I don't get to see very much. I really enjoy that. I've made some really good friends with some folks all over the country and it always warms my heart to see them. And probably my most favorite thing is watching the people who have some longevity in the sport. I'm talking about the 80, 90, 100 year old swimmers. They are amazing to watch and I love standing and cheering for them and watching their accomplishments. It warms my heart and that is the goal. I want to be a swimmer in heat one day. Who was my favorite swimmer or most inspiring swimmer of the meet? I would say Maureen Cornfield. She is 101 years old and swims a lot of events and is amazing. And then I would also say watching one of my teammates get lifetime best times was also a highlight to show that even if we are in our 30s, 40s, 50s, we are still capable of swimming amazing times and I love watching that. And also the last thing I would say, that was my favorite swim. It wasn't one of mine, but I got to race against Erica Braun and she had set a goal to break the national record in the 100 breaststroke and she did it. And when I finished swimming and I saw my time and then I saw her time I was just like, oh my gosh, you just did that. That was amazing. So those are probably like the top three of the meat for me. And, oh, the best meal, i would say all of our dinners were amazing. We again had a teammate who was from the area and she planned all of our dinners and, yeah, they were all so good, the food was so great in California and it was just an amazing trip and I'm so glad I went and I learned a lot and saw so many people and, yeah, it was amazing.

Becky Cleavenger: 6:27

I would describe the atmosphere around the pool deck at USMS Nationals as very loud. Swimming is a very loud sport, i think, compared to other amateur sports, and at USMS Nationals the pool deck was literally packed with people who were cheering for friends, teammates, people from other teams and even competitors. And so there's this really happy energy and team spirit and support for each other. And behind the blocks, when you're getting ready to race, it's really fun to talk with the people that you're racing against. There's a lot of nerves back there, but there's also an awful lot of laughter. We're all doing it because we like to challenge ourselves, but mostly because it's fun. I swam the 50, 100 and 200 free the 100 and 200 I am and four relays. I would say my individual events were a mixed bag of results. One was really bad, one was pretty good and the others were just so. So I've been thinking, and we'll continue to think, about what might not have gone well or why. And you know, maybe it's just that I need to reset my expectations. I'm not getting any younger, i'm 59 now, or maybe it was something else. So, again, that's something I need to be thinking about over the next several days and then I can make some adjustments and take it from there. The race that I was the happiest with was the 100 I am, which is just a really fun event in the first place, and after my abysmal 200 I am, where I got a calf cramp pushing off the block. I really wanted to have a solid race. In the one I am, i focused on being confident and just blasting each 25 as best I could, and I was also probably overdosing on electrolyte supplements to ward off more cramps. I had a good time for me and I executed the way I wanted to, so I was just really happy with that race overall. Pre-race warm-up was interesting. I usually try to do a 300 swim, 200 kick, 200 drill and some descending 50s maybe two sets of four descending 50s, which my coach, nancy Reno, has us do almost every day at swim practice, so our bodies know how to get ready to swim fast. The warm-up lanes at USMS Spring Nationals were packed with people at various speeds in each lane and some people are warming up and some people are warming down, so the kicking and the fast swimming didn't really happen. What I was able to squeeze in were some fast spurts of swimming when there was clear space in the lane and also really focus on turns for the strokes that I was racing each day. Usually there's this distance event in the morning and then they open up the pool for 30 minutes after the distance event and that's usually sprint lanes. So I would go over there and do fast 25s off the blocks and that was a good opportunity to figure out where I wanted the wedge to be set and also see if there were any wobbly blocks or any personicity issues. I think the best things about USMS Spring Nationals are making friends from all over the country and also some from other countries. The fast people and there were so many, including Jenny Thompson coming back at age 50 and lighting the pool and the record book on fire Nathan Adrian, vlad Morozov and my favorite, anthony Irvin, and so many more, some of whom were NC2A athletes or some of them maybe just were late bloomers and got fast later in life, and they're so fast now, so I love watching those folks swim. And then, last, i think, the fact that whether a person is fast or slow or like 98% of the people at the meet, somewhere in between, and despite whatever issues they may be facing in their lives, they show up, they get out of their comfort zone and they challenge themselves. My favorite or most inspiring swimmer Gosh, there's so many. I love watching the super fast folks do their thing and race, but the most inspiring person has to be Maureen Kornfeld, who, at age 101, still dives off the blocks and does crazy races And she sets world records all the time and she's just absolutely amazing. I think the best meal that I had during the competition was probably the breakfast each day which I took at my hotel, and I had a omelet with cheese, spinach, mushrooms and coffee. It filled me pretty well, because I find it hard to get in anything other than snacks during the competition. So, being at the pool for approximately eight hours each day, you need more than snacks. I also drank a lot of water and took in a lot of electrolyte supplements because of the strange cramping issue I was having throughout the duration of the meet, both day and night.

Lynn Fahey: 11:38

Hey y'all, it's Lynn Vahey. I'm a USMS swimmer based in Southern California, and I just got back from the Masters National Swim Meet in Irvine. It was amazing. On the pool deck, this facility, it has two 50 meter pools and an additional 25 yard teaching pool, so there was plenty of space for the racing and for warm-ups. They had, for the distance races, simultaneous competition going on in both pools, and then for the other races they separated it out each day with a men's course and a women's course. I did what I call the freestyle buffet. I swim every distance of freestyle I possibly could in the meet, so everything from the 50 to the mile, and, honestly, my favorite races probably were the 50 and the mile. I loved my time in the 1650. I beat my goal and I was surprised with how fast I sprinted, given that I focused mostly on distance races this year. Of course, though, the most fun races of the meet were the relays. Our team had about 35 swimmers come, and we put together tons of relays every day Great women's relays, great men's relays, great mixed gender relays. Everywhere you looked on pool deck there were swimming celebrities. Kurt Groot was there, jenny Thompson was there, anthony Irvin was there, gabrielle Rose was there. It was amazing, but probably far and away the most inspiring swimmer of the meet has to be Maureen Kornfeld. She's 100 years old and still racing and breaking records. If that's not fitness goals, i don't know what is. We have a similar hero on our team. Sally Crock is 80 and absolutely crushed her goal times this weekend. We're so proud of Sally from our squad. The funniest thing is I'm a little bit of a creature of habit. The first night after the competition my husband and I randomly went to a local restaurant that was just near the pool and convenient. We liked it so much. We ended up eating there every single night of the competition and even got my entire team to go there one of the nights. I don't know that I got deep into the food scene while I was in Irvine, but I definitely enjoyed eating at Lamp Post Pizza. I think I'm their new best customer. Hope to see y'all at some meet around in the US. If you're there. Maybe someday I'll even make it to an international competition.

Katie Glenn: 14:15

Hi, Danielle, great to talk with you. The atmosphere at Spring Nationals was amazing. It was really fun to see so many friends, the weather was fantastic And, of course, the opportunity to test yourself and see where your fitness is is always nice. I swam the 50 hundred and tuner breast, 100 am and 100 free. I think my happiest race, or the one that made me the most excited, was my 50 breast because I ended up going 6 tenths faster this year than I did last year. I had amazing competition. Gabby Rose, who's a two time Olympian, was very competitive. She was crushing every swim that she had, breaking records by seconds. It was really fun to race her And I really enjoyed that and she helped me step up and have some of my best swims, which was really fun. My pre-race warm up is pretty generic. I usually do about a 400. Just kind of loosening up, a 200 easy build kick And then I usually do a 200 drill. If I'm swimming breaststroke, then I just mix those up with various drills Two kicks to one pull, two up, one down, breathing every other stroke, just kind of nice and relaxing, just letting my body get warmed up. And then I usually do four to six fifties freestyle, trying to get my heart rate up. And then I'll do some variable sprints 12 and a half fast, 12 and a half easy, maybe a couple of 25s build, and then I usually do one or two starts just to make sure everything is firing. And the most inspiring swimmer it's always really fun when Maureen Kornfeld is there. She's 101 now, which is just incredible to even live to be 100. But to be able to compete, she's a rock star on deck. Everybody wants to take their photos with her. It's really fun and very inspiring to watch her. And then we actually had an amazing meal at a vegan restaurant I think it was called Bird Speak And we had kind of a tempura battered cauliflower sandwich And it was just outstanding. But it was a really fun meet. I had a couple of people from my team that were there. One of my swimmers, carl Edgerton. He dropped 25 seconds in his mile, 5 seconds in his 500 free. He dropped I think 10 seconds in his 400 IM. Every one of his swims he had a big time drop And then he got his first silvers and bronze. He's won before but he'd never gotten second or third. So it was really fun to see him have just a great meet and have kind of be a cat, and then he got a wrap on an awesome season where all of the pieces fell together for him, so it was really fun, so I hope that this is helpful, thanks.

Erika Braun: 17:46

Hi everyone. This is Erica Braun. I am calling from North Carolina, just recently returned from the US MS Masters Nationals out in Irvine, california, where I swam for North Carolina Masters. So we compete as a state from the East Coast to the West Coast for North Carolina And we had 28 summers that made the trip out West. It was a really exciting time as this was the largest national championship event in the history of US MS, with over 2400 summer. So it was pretty exciting to be part of the amazing participation. And they held the event at Irvine Aquatic Center, which had two amazing long course meters pools that ran simultaneously and had plenty of ample space for warm up and warm down, which sometimes is a little iffy with long course meters meets You just don't know what kind of warm up facility, but we had a great opportunity to warm up and warm down, so that is so important to prepare for for events. The venue was set up so that we had lots of tents available to rent and we definitely took advantage of that. There were several massage therapists. Andrea Burgess was my massage therapist, which I took advantage of every single day of the event. It ran from Thursday to Sunday this past weekend and it kicked off with a long distance event, which I am a sprinter, so I did not take advantage of those, but we were fortunate to participate in the 35 plus age group for the 400 free mixed relay. So two guys, two girls and we were thrilled to dip under the national record in that age group. That was a seven-year record and hit that new record for the team We actually had already. We held it from 2016 as North Carolina Masters, but we dipped below it by three seconds, so that was pretty cool. The atmosphere was just amazing. The thing that I really love is uniting with our friends that we don't get to see all of the time. Of course, being with our North Carolina team was so much fun The social aspect, the competitive nature. We participated in five different relays mixed women's. I participated in both the 35 plus and 45 plus relays. I'm 51 now, so just aged up last year, and just really enjoyed the atmosphere, the camaraderie, seeing the Olympians from past years who showed up for the event. That was really super inspiring to see them getting just reinvigorated for the sport, to come back and compete as a Masters athlete. We had Nathan Adrian and Anthony Irwin from the sprint group from California that showed up, and being on the West Coast definitely had its advantage to bring in those athletes. I was fortunate enough again to be part of that record setting national record relay, but also had the privilege to dip down in a new age group for me, 50 to 54, to set three individual national records. I brought in my scope a little. I'm not really a breast darker, but just because I wanted to try something different, and again it was a sprint. I had been focusing the last couple months on training some breaststroke and had come really, really close. About a month ago at our state meet in the 100 breast I think I was like 16 100s off of the national record And so I thought I'd give it a go at nationals. And so I was, i think, like 1093 at the state meet And I set the national record at 1079. So I was really pleased with that. It was kind of a surprise, but it was fun to focus on something different than my normal 50 and 100 freestyle events that I usually focus in on. Another goal that I had personally was to be the first woman over 50 to break a minute in the 100 butterfly, and we're talking yards for for the US. So I was really focused. I had hit double low several times this season. However, had not broken that minute barrier in probably five years, so really was working hard and focusing on that goal, visualizing it And at the end of the race when I hit the wall, it was difficult to see the clock, but you have to actually, in one of the pools, swim backwards to the flags, actually see the scoreboard, and so when I saw a 58-8, i was absolutely thrilled. So that was probably the highlight of my event at Nationals is just to not only break that minute barrier in the Hunter Fly again, but to break the 59 second barrier. So to go 58 was just really thrilling, and then also had the opportunity to lower my national record in the 100 IM And also dipped below the 100 freestyle national record that I previously set. However, i was racing against four-time Olympian, jenny Thompson, who again had an amazing meet and come back from her career to becoming, you know, a master swimmer, and so we had an amazing race. But she touched me out and went at 52 flat and I went at 52-5. So, although we both went under the national record, jenny now holds that record, so that was definitely really fun to be part of Again cheering for my teammates, seeing their success just being part of that unity of master swimming, was probably the most rewarding for me. But also it's just really fun to go to a big championship meet, working really hard all season and then actually see your goals come to fruition is something that I think would definitely encourage any summer. Who likes to set goals and work toward them. That it is rewarding. Sometimes it always doesn't pay off, but just have that perseverance. It eventually will pay off with all the hard work. One of the things that we love to do is go out to eat as a team, and so some of us went to a great restaurant in Irvine called the Winery Restaurant and Bar and had an amazing steak dinner. So I always love to eat protein when I'm at a meet and so had an amazing time there. But again, it was a really fun event. It was great seeing so many of our teammates and also fellow swimmers from across the way. We saw a 101 year old break national records and her events. That was so inspiring, and just see so many new people to the event was just again rewarding. So anyway, that's just a little highlight from my experience. I cannot wait until master's long course meeters nationals in Sarasota and look forward to seeing everyone there.

Trina Schaetz: 24:49

Hi Danielle, you had some really good questions, thanks to our petal swim talk. This is always fun. The atmosphere at US MS Nationals has been just spectacular. I mean, four days in the bright, sunny sunshine of California Can't beat it. The temperatures have been good and the weather has been great for everybody and people just seem happy with all of the great sunshine, so that's been awesome. I swam the 50 and 100 free, the 100 breaststroke and 100 I am, and I had to leave the meet early because I have to go to a wedding. But I was supposed to swim the 50 breaststroke this afternoon and then I was in five relays with some teammates, which was my favorite part. I love those relays. The energy is always so great. You asked what my favorite swim of the weekend was, or that I'm most proud of. I'm super happy with my 50 breaststroke split in one of the mixed sorry, not the mixed relay the women's medley relay that we did yesterday. I went 30.2 and that was super fast and I've been having a little bit of trouble with my rocket boosters, so having that time come up on the board was like yay. I brought a great smile to my face. My kids were very excited to hear it real loud, which was awesome to see. You asked also about what my three favorite things are about Masters Nationals. I think I could say my one favorite thing is the people. I guess three, if I break that out. It's the people. You see only once a year, some of these great friends that we don't train with but you run into at this meet, just catching up and seeing how everybody's doing and learning what people are doing to stay in shape and to enjoy their lives and to be well. Also, i love cheering for the successes of our teammates. Not everybody has great swims, but everybody does something that they're really proud of and we're just all proud of each other. And then I mean hands down. My favorite is swimming with my guy and my daughters. I don't know how you beat that. That's super terrific. So that's part of my favorite. And then I think you asked too about pre-race. This is not my meet warm up, but right before my race. As I do this later in life, i really like to get in just right before I swim. I don't get in, you know, a long time before and then spend time waiting behind the blocks, so I swim right up until my race. I do a couple of 75s freestyle, just real loose and light, and I don't get tired. I don't like to get myself tired. And then I do some 50s where I go freestyle down and backstroke back. And then I do some 50s where I go backstroke arms but I do breaststroke kick and then I swim freestyle on the way back. So I like to warm up my breaststroke kick And then just a few 25s until I feel good, and once I feel my stroke good, i just get the heck out of there because I don't want to feel bad anymore. I just jump out and go to the pool. So that's my experience, and I know other people have great ideas too. But thanks for having me on And I hope everybody had a great weekend. Bye.